LG, Samsung Come Together On Mobile TV

Rivals Will Work On Jointly Developed Standard For Mobile TV

By Todd Spangler -- Multichannel News, 5/14/2008 12:42:00 PM

LG Electronics and Samsung Electronics—two large consumer electronics rivals—announced Wednesday that they will propose a jointly developed technology as the North American technology standard for mobile digital TV.

The two South Korean companies previously proposed competing technologies, but now will team up to introduce a single in-band mobile DTV technology to the Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC).

ATSC is expected to adopt the mobile/handheld DTV standard for the North American market in early 2009, following trials of three technologies by the Open Mobile Video Coalition (OMVC), a consortium of broadcasters.

The OMVC’s members include 20 companies that own and operate more than 450 commercial television stations, as well as the Association of Public Television Stations, which represents 360 public TV stations.

The consortium recently completed technical trials in San Francisco and Las Vegas of three mobile-DTV-transmission systems: the Mobile-Pedestrian-Handheld (MPH) system developed by LG and Harris; the Advanced Vestigial Sideband (A-VSB) system developed by Samsung and Rohde & Schwarz; and a third system from Thomson and Micronas.

"LG and Samsung are already world-class in digital TV and mobile communications," LG president and chief technology officer Woo Paik said in a statement. "Through this collaboration, we also have an opportunity to lead the North American mobile DTV market."